why does the discussion of constructivism jump us to programming (Papert, aside for the moment).
there are some terrific possibilities in significantly more playful spaces, e.g., Minecraft and Arduinos:
Minecraft goes from a sort of virtual Lego buiding experience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWJqCWetH-c&feature=relmfu
... to logic gates and advanced construction of working machines.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB684ym3QY4
Arduinos involves very simple programming as well, but it is a more tangible interface, literally:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xCY2K9kQz4
Lindax
ps
anyone going to Minecon in Vegas?
On Oct 26, 2011, at 12:47 PM, Huw Lloyd wrote:
I would be very interested to hear about various people's encounters with
Scratch. Its a terrifically interesting enterprise that xmca o philes
should
a variety of equally interesting
opinions about.
mike
Scratch uses smalltalk. I found this page interesting:
http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/Squeak_Tutorial
I've had a quick look at Scratch. It looks like a GUI language for
animating 'sprites'. Looks fun.
I'm familiar with Alan Kay's Squeakland. I think the entry time (entry
level) is more significant with Squeakland -- the interface is more
abstract. Though this also gives much more depth of expression and
creation.
The Squeakland depth seems like a good intermediary between Scratch and
vanilla smalltalk. I suspect kids would struggle to get beyond the
immediate limits of Scratch. Is there a meta-scratch too for adding their
own functions? Though perhaps the idea is that when they know what a
function they expand into other programming languages?
Huw
On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 4:37 AM, Bill Kerr <billkerr@gmail.com> wrote:
The constructionist use of computers in schools as developed by Seymour
Papert and allies is still a fruitful one. The modern incarnation of the
software is scratch from MIT http://scratch.mit.edu/ but it remains true
that to understand its educational philosophy fully you need to read some
books. One idea is "hard play". Another is "low entry, high ceiling".
This
was modified a little in scratch to "low floor, wide walls".
Moreover, the one laptop per child (OLPC) as developed by Negroponte and
allies remains a worthwhile experiment to kick start learning for third
world children.
Peter, all the link shows is that mediocre use of computers leads to
mediocre results.
On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 8:24 PM, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu>
wrote:
http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2011/10/26/schools-without-computers-by-choice-and-conviction-that-they-dont-help-kids/?cxntfid=blogs_get_schooled_blog
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